A top spokeswoman on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign on
Wednesday appeared to compare the complexity of her email
controversy to the New England Patriots'
"Deflategate" scandal.

"This is like, everyone's an expert on inflating footballs, and
now everybody's an expert on wiping servers. Like, I don't know
how that all works," Jennifer Palmieri, the Clinton campaign's
communication director, said during an
interview on Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect."

Clinton is facing widespread scrutiny over her use of a personal
email server for government business during her time as secretary
of state. Critics are also questioning the
subsequent "wipe" from her server of thousands of emails her
team deemed personal after handing the rest over to the State
Department.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was accused of intentionally
letting footballs be deflated beneath National Football League
standards during an NFL playoff game earlier this year. According
to the league, Brady destroyed his cell phone "even though he
was aware that the investigators had requested access to text
messages."

Palmieri said during her Bloomberg interview that Clinton
had simply decided to get rid of her old personal emails. As far
as the decision to use a personal email account for her
government work, the former secretary of state "didn't
really think it through," Palmieri said.

"I've encountered this a lot in politics where people think that
the answer is a lot more complicated than it really is," Palmieri
explained. "She's answered this many times, and she did have her
own email account. Others had done it before, and it was just
more convenient, and she kept it like that, and she didn't really
— that's the thing, she didn't really think it through."

Clinton herself echoed that sentiment Tuesday at
a testy press conference in Nevada during which she discussed
her email server. She recently directed her aides to turn the
server over to the FBI after questions emerged about whether
there was classified information on it.